Strengthen Your Garage Door
05/03/2023
Make Resilient Upgrades | Strengthen Your Home • Hurricanes | Tornadoes
More than 90% of damage to homes during hurricanes begins when garage doors fail. Garage doors are typically the largest and weakest openings in a home.
What makes a garage door stronger than another?
- Metal thickness (gauge) of the door to resist pressure and windborne debris impacts
- Number and strength of mounting brackets and connectors holding the track to the wall and the ceiling
- Strength of the horizontal reinforcements on the door to resist buckling
What type of doors are best for high-wind locations?
- Wind- and impact-rated doors that are tested and approved. Wind-rated is good. Impact-rated is better.
- Single-car garage doors usually resist wind forces better than two-car garage doors.
- Doors without glass, or glazing, are better than those with glass or windows (unless the glass is impact-resistant).
How do you know if your garage door is impact-rated or wind-rated?
It can be difficult to determine if garage doors are impact- or wind-rated without proof of compliance labeling (typically yellow or white sticker listing pounds per square foot, or PSF).
If you do not have a sticker, contact your builder or manufacturer.
How can you strengthen your existing garage door?
- Check the mounting brackets and connectors and make sure the screws are tight and the track is not loose.
- Add mounting brackets and connectors if you only have three or four on each side.
- Replace rusted pins or worn-out rollers, and make sure they are balanced.
- Consider a bracing kit if the door is strong. If it is not, it may fail and wrap around the bracing.